Radiotherapy displays curative potential for cervical cancer management, but radioresistance occurs during long-term therapy. To overcome this limitation, tumor-targeted nanotechnology has been proposed to enhance the radiosensitivity of solid tumors. Herein, we used biocompatible bovine serum albumin nanoparticles (BSANPs) as carriers of organic selenocompound (PSeD) with folate (FA) as the targeting ligand to fabricate a cancer-targeted nanosystem. The combination of PSeD and BSANPs endowed the nanosystem with higher light absorption and reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation owing to their properties of surface plasmon resonance (SPR) effect, heavy metal effect, high refractive index and nanoparticulate interfacial effect. The combined treatment drastically increased the ROS overproduction, VEGF/VEGFR2 inactivation and inhibition of XRCC-1-mediated repair of DNA damage, thus triggering G2/M phase arrest and apoptosis. Taken together, our findings demonstrate the utility of FA-BSANPs as a promising radiosensitizer to improve cancer radiotherapy.
Yudi Deng,Zhijie Jiang,Yincheng Jin,Jianan Qiao,Shan Yang,Hui Xiong,Jing Yao
Detrimental tumor microenvironment (TME) relies on distorted tumor vasculature for further tumor expansion. Vascular normalization therapy partly improves TME through vessel repairing, while these therapies enter an unbreakable Möbius ring due to each attempt hindered by pro-angiogenic factors from TME, leading to limited duration and extent of vascular normalization. Here, we developed a nanosystem including FLG and MAR/MPA nanodrugs to regulate both tumor vasculature and TME. FLG nanodrugs were constructed by connecting VEGF/VEGFR2 inhibitory low molecular weight heparin and gambogic acid with F3 peptide decoration for directly regulating on vascular endothelial cells and inducing vascular normalization. Meanwhile, MAR/MPA nanodrugs encapsulating CCL5/CCR5 blocker maraviroc were designed to restrict cytokine functions of angiogenesis and TME deterioration, contributing to vasculature repairing and TME reconstruction. Our results demonstrated this combined nanosystem synergistically induced vascular normalization window lasting 9 days and restored vascular permeability and oxygen supply in Panc-1 tumor. Furthermore, in melanoma, our nanosystem achieved immune improvements with increased infiltration of CD4 + and CD8 + T cells in a remodeled TME. The two nanodrugs assisting each other in terms of both vascular repairing and TME improvements successfully reversed the vicious crosstalk to a positive one, achieving overall TME remodeling and promoting therapeutic efficiency.